WISDOM: Probing Supermassive Black Holes and their Immediate Environments with ALMA
by
Prof.Martin Bureau(University of Oxford)
→
Asia/Shanghai
Seminar Room, Department of Astronomy （5th floor, No. 5 Building of the Science Building)
Seminar Room, Department of Astronomy （5th floor, No. 5 Building of the Science Building)
Description
Abstract
I will present key results from the mm-Wave Interferometric Survey of
Dark Object Masses (WISDOM), a high resolution survey of molecular gas in galaxy nuclei. First, I will show that CO can be used to easily and accurately measure the mass of the supermassive black holes lurking at galaxy centres. I will then discuss substantial ongoing efforts to do this, and present many spectacular new ALMA measurements, the latest of which rival the best black hole measurements to date. This opens the way to literally hundreds of measurements across the Hubble sequence (in both active and non-active galaxies) with a unique method. Second, I will briefly show how the same data allow to study the spatially-resolved properties of the giant molecular clouds in all the galaxies studied. This will yield cloud censuses in non-local galaxies (including early-type galaxies) for the first time, providing a new tool to understand and contrast the star formation efficiency across galaxies. Already, it appears that basic cloud properties are not universal and vary systematically along the Hubble sequence, contrary to long-held assumptions.
Biography
Martin Bureau is a self-described galaxy guru, with an interest in anything and everything galactic. He is particularly interested in using observations and theoretical studies of the gas, stars, and dark matter that make up galaxies to constrain their formation and evolution.
Martin is Professor of Astrophysics at the University of Oxford, and Lindemann Fellow and Tutor in Physics at Wadham College. He has been in Oxford for over a decade, following appointments at Columbia University as a NASA Hubble Fellow and at Leiden University. He obtained his PhD from The Australian National University and is originally from Montreal, Canada.
